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Monday, May 10, 2010

Lemon Tree Dress

I suppose you think I've just been dutifully working on my background dress. Well, I had to sneak in another little project just for fun. A lemony, summery treat of a dress!
This is made from a silk and cotton blend that I bought at Mood. I love fruit prints, don't you? And this one was so unusual I couldn't pass it up, especially in this luscious, slightly sheer blend.

The pattern is Advance 9441, one of the first vintage patterns I ever bought!

The only fitting change I made was to add a little width to the waist (no girdles in the summer, please!) and shorten the sleeves just a tad. And of course take some major length off the skirt, but that's a given for me with vintage patterns. I'm wearing it here without a crinoline, but it would be fun to add one for a super fluffy skirt.

Hey look, here's a shot with my new beige shoes! These are the Clarks I posted about here. I love them!Henry doesn't care about the shoes, he just wanted to know when he was getting dinner.

This pattern is pretty simple and I went with a minimal, vintage-style construction. I used a metal zipper (one of the Riri zips that I lusted about in this post) and hand-picked it.

I just love this technique; it makes a garment feel so special I think. (Here's an excellent article on hand-picked zippers, by the way.)

I opted not to line and am wearing a slip with the dress instead. I pinked the seam allowances and facings.

Because this fabric is ever-so-slightly sheer, facings were a bit of a challenge. With a bold print like this, you run the risk of the facings showing through to the outside. First, I used a flesh-toned silk organza as interfacing. Then, to avoid show-through on the right side of the dress, I lined the back of the facings in a rayon lining fabric that matches my skin tone. This works like a nude bra - you can't detect it from the outside. Here are the layers of my facings:

(You'll notice that I got a cutting mat and rotary cutter - a birthday gift from my parents! I don't know how I lived without these tools.)

This pattern has underarm gussets - my first! They went in just fine.

I covered a belt buckle using a Dritz kit, purchased from Pacific Trim here in New York. I used 1" belting from Steinlauf and Stoller for the actual belt itself.

50 comments:

I just love your Lemon Tree Dress. It makes me think of a bright and happy day. Thanks for the sewing tips on the facing. I am new to sewing and love hearing different ways to do things. Love your kitty too.

Very cute dress. I love the lemons, it makes me think of summer inmediately. Thanks for the link to the hand-picking of the zipper. I never thought of doing it that way, but it sounds like something I absolutely want to try!

Beautiful dress! I'm glad that you got those shoes, they look great. Your technique on the facings is genius, I've been wrestling with buying semi-sheer fabrics for the sheer (ba dum dum chhh) difficulty of facings that won't show through. I never thought to use flesh-toned fabric! I am really jealous of your fabric selections - there just aren't any wonderful fabric stores in Boston (Winmill is about as close as we get to having "fashion" fabrics, but they're mostly super stretchy and/or chiffon). They did, however, have a great selection of organza. Maybe next time I'm down there I will buy a yard or two of flesh-tone fabric.

Wonderful dress on you ! Yes, I agree linings sometimes do take away from certain styles - I can't see it on the Lemon dress without weighting it down. I love the shoes - we have a clark's outlet here and I have been smitten!

Oh gosh! It's so sweet and the perfect compliment to some summertime groove. Love love love it! Thanks for the tip about the facings. I'm actually facing this problem and will be incoporating this into my next project.

I just came across your blog looking for sewing tutorials. I love your idea to create Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing. Such an incredibly creative idea. I can't wait to try some of the looks (esp. the bow-tied blouse and gathered skirt)

This dress is gorgeous, btw. Ahh, you are going to make me spend way too much money at the fabric store ;)

Ii have been searching for a belt buckle covering kit all over and can't seem to find one! I'm glad to see that they still exist and I wasn't just imagining them. Do you know if they are carried online anywhere?

And I'm also in love with that lemon fabric, it's so fresh and summery.

wow, seeing the fabric posted and now the dress is like... watching a pretty little girl grow up into a voluptuous and beautiful woman. You look so stunning in the close up shot of you, guess its hard not to beam after such an accomplishment. Glad to see you are rocking the nude shoes with a light and airy dress the way they were meant to be.

Beautiful.. the dress and the kitteh! The pinked facings are so pretty too... something I haven't considered since I have an overlocker, but they really add to the vintage feel. Speaking of which... can you, Gertie, or any of your readers solve a retro pattern mystery for me? http://stylewilderness.blogspot.com/2010/05/maternity-mystery.html

Gertie, I really love this dress. I love how bright and happy it is. I think the shoes are very nice, too. I think because they are nude, the eye automatically goes up to the dress; basically, the shoes do not take attention away from the dress.

This looks exactly like a vintage dress I have! I wonder if it's the same pattern. I wish the person who made it was as clever as you, though, because it's not lined at all and the polka dots in the facings always show through.

Hi Gertie, just letting you know and hope u don't mind that I used one of your images from this post for my post on handpicked zippers (http://www.sewmelove.com/2012/11/goodbye-invisible-zippers-hello.html)